Last week 41/09

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds died at the age of 46 in London. The price of cigarettes rose. The government approved a budget deficit of 163 billion crowns. One hundred and twenty thousand people watched the pope's mass at Brno-Tuřany airport.
"Please, talk to Czech atheists," Pope Benedict XVI beseeched Czech President Václav Klaus. Czech Communist Party (KSČM) Chairman Vojtěch Filip became a grandfather. The media reported that Iran had conducted tests on missiles that could reach Europe. Frosts came over the weekend. The International Monetary Fund raised its estimate of global economic growth from 2.5 to 3 percent. One thousand and seventy-four years passed since the death of St. Wenceslas (Václav). Saudi Arabian and Egyptian sheiks announced that they want to buy the Louka monastery in Znojmo and turn it into a department store. The police arrested a policeman who had robbed two people in Vsetín armed with a pistol.
"With that drop, we will hit the bottom. I stand behind that," said Finance Minister Eduard Janota, concluding his prognosis that the Czech economy will shrink again next year, by 0.5 percent. The Czech Republic sold more emission allowances to Japan. Seventeen Civic Democratic Party (ODS) senators asked the constitutional court again for its opinion on whether the Lisbon Treaty, aimed at reigning in European Union bureaucracy, threatens the sovereignty of the Czech Republic, and the constitutional court informed the petitioners that its second response (the first was "no") would be delivered in an expedited procedure. After a year's absence, Hroši Havlíčkův Brod ("Havlíčkův Brod Hippos") returned to Czech softball's top division. A Hungarian truck sideswiped a car in Teplice, killing two Iranian nationals. Former Czech President Václav Havel was awarded the Goldene Henne (Golden Hen) in Berlin by the German media for his "courage in the revolutionary year of 1989 and a lifetime of political work."
"We are indifferent to public affairs and promoting things. We let ourselves be scared off; we feel that everything has been lobbied for, that money has already decided everything; we'd rather not do anything because something could happen to us. That's why it is so difficult to get capable people involved in politics," sociologist Jana Hamanová responded, in an interview for Respekt, when asked "Do we or don't we know what actually makes politics unpleasant for Czechs? What is behind that constant disgust with politics?" One hundred and forty years passed since the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. Shares in the Czech company BGS Energy began trading on the Warsaw stock exchange. The Česká lékárnická komora ("Czech Chamber of Pharmacists") urged the authorities to restrict the existing practice of allowing people to buy 60 tablets of over-the-counter drugs containing pseudoephedrine per month on their health insurance card. Komerční banka combined its services with the insurance company Česká pojišťovna. Communist Party (KSČM) Vice-Chairman Jiří Dolejš resigned from his post owing to his willingness to take one million crowns into his party's coffers from a phony gambling business (in fact, Mladá fronta Dnes journalists) as a bribe for casting the "right" vote on amendments to the lottery law.
"We want to be a leader in Central Europe," Stock Spirits Group CEO Neil Everitt told Hospodářské noviny. A survey revealed that Czech children rank first in the European Union in drinking and smoking. Domestic winemakers announced they would supply retailers with one million bottles of St. Martin's Day wines in the run-up to Christmas. The Environment Ministry gave the energy giant ČEZ the green light to build a new gas turbine in Počerady. Household debt at domestic banks rose from 943 billion to 951 billion crowns during the summer months. The St. Procop Church in Cleveland, Ohio, which was originally founded by Czechs, shut down after 137 years of existence.
"Mr. Kafka's trial ended today. Nothing happened at the chateau," Judge Marcel Ječný of the High Court in Prague said after pronouncing retired businessman Robert Kafka "innocent"; the police had accused Mr. Kafka of tax evasion amounting to 140 million crowns, and though it was soon clear he had not committed anything, detectives continued to "investigate" him for three more years until the court finally cleared him once and for all; during the investigation and protracted legal battle, Mr. Kafka lost his well-established tobacco business and an estimated 150 million crowns. The Národní muzeum (National Museum) opened the exhibition The Story of Planet Earth. Talks between the West and nuclear-arms-seeking Iran began in Geneva. Petroleum sales fell. Billionaire Petr Kellner's PPF financial group took over the Russian retail network Eldorado. Natural gas prices dropped. A runaway trailer filled with manure demolished a parked car and a its owner's fence in Červenec near Olomouc. Meteorologists concluded that October would be warm and sunny.